The settlement also came on the heels of a May 1 written ruling by Federal Judge Dee Benson in Salt Lake City who threw out six of the coal company’s seven claims against the miners and their supporters. These include immigration fraud, unfair labor practices, violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and civil conspiracy. C.W. Mining had leveled these charges in a retaliatory lawsuit it filed in federal court in September 2004. (See article in last week’s Militant.)

In negotiating the settlement, the miners insisted that the company’s “defamation” charges be dismissed against all remaining defendants in that lawsuit—the UMWA, Militant newspaper, and Utah Jobs with Justice. The settlement with C.W. Mining releases each of these defendants, as well as all those included by the company in two earlier complaints.

“It would have been an injustice for anyone to be left in the lawsuit, especially since it was these groups who were our strongest backers throughout the fight,” said a leader of the organizing drive, who asked that his name not be used in this article.

“The miners felt it was important for the lawsuit to be dropped for everyone,” former Co-Op miner Guillermo Hernández told the Militant. “We are all glad it is being withdrawn as part of this settlement.”

“The way this was settled is a victory for us,” Hernández said.

Miners who were involved in the union-organizing campaign at Co-Op are planning for a Mexican dinner celebration at the UMWA hall here in Price on Sunday, June 4.

“It’s a way to say thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout this long struggle,” said one of the miners. “We want to keep our friendship with the union and our supporters. We may need those ties again in the future.”  
 
Fired for union activity
In addition to releasing all defendants from the lawsuit, C.W. Mining agreed as part of the settlement to pay back wages to six miners who were fired in September 2003 or in December 2004.

The company fired 30 workers in all, one week before a union representation election at the mine in December 2004, using the pretext that it had recently learned that most of the workers were undocumented. Nearly every supporter of the UMWA in the mine was terminated.

A year later, in December 2005, NLRB Region 27 Director Allan Benson ruled that the firings were discriminatory against the miners and were aimed at “discouraging membership in a labor organization.” This NLRB determination still stands.

As part of the settlement, two of the fired miners, Guillermo Hernández and Alyson Kennedy, decided not to exercise their rights to return to work at Co-Op.

The canceled May 16 NLRB hearing would have heard arguments on C.W. Mining’s objections to the NLRB Region 27 director’s determination that the firings had been discriminatory. Had the regional director’s findings been upheld, the union election ballots would have been counted.

As a result of company firings, however, there are no longer any UMWA supporters working at the mine. Moreover, the company alleges it is precluded by federal immigration law from rehiring any of the other miners fired in December 2004. According to miners in the area, the Co-Op workforce is now almost exclusively members of the Kingston family who own the mine.

“I wasn’t going back to Co-Op unless there was going to be respect and dignity there,” said Hernández, who put in 18 years at the mine and was making $7.40 an hour when he was fired.

As part of the recent settlement, the UMWA has withdrawn its claim to represent current or former employees at the mine.  
 
The fight at Co-Op
According to miners involved in the struggle, the mostly Mexican immigrants who worked at Co-Op began their fight for safety, dignity on job, and better wages in the fall of 2003. Underground miners’ starting pay was $5.50 an hour there.

After the miners turned to the UMWA for representation, the company began to harass and discipline union supporters. On Sept. 22, 2003, the company suspended Bill Estrada, one of the miners who supported the union, setting the stage to fire him. The company had earlier tried to fire two other UMWA supporters, but miners had turned back those attempts.

Rather than accept Estrada’s firing, virtually the entire workforce put down their tools and confronted the bosses outside the mine office. When the miners, after two or three hours of arguing with supervisors, refused to back down and return to work, the company called in the sheriff and locked the workers out.

Some 75 miners turned the company’s lockout into a strike, which received widespread media coverage and won support from the union movement and from other organizations and individuals throughout Utah and the West, across the United States, and internationally from New Zealand, to Canada, to the United Kingdom.

The picket line was set up during the dead of winter. Retired UMWA miners showed up at the line early on with donated food and other assistance. “We were the first ones there,” Bob Fivecoat, a retired coal miner and member of UMWA Local 9958 in nearby East Carbon, told the Militant. “We’re extremely proud to have stood with these miners from the very beginning.”

The strikers attracted the support of miners, union and nonunion alike, throughout Carbon and Emery counties. The local Catholic Church established a fund to help miners pay their rent and utility bills. Unions and other groups and individuals helped sustain the miners with solidarity activity and financial support.  
 
Turning point in struggle
The failure of the mine owners to get strikers to cross the picket line, and the growing solidarity with the strike, led the company in July 2004 to agree to an NLRB-brokered settlement with the UMWA. The coal operators offered the miners their jobs back and agreed to a union representation election.

With the hiring boom at other coal mines in Carbon and Emery counties, only about half the strikers returned to work at Co-Op. Those miners set out to win over to the union the co-workers who had not supported the strike.

“The company was just as determined as we were,” said Estrada. “They did everything they could to turn workers against the union, but by the time of the union vote in December, we had won almost every miner at Co-Op who wasn’t a company family member over to our side.”

“Something big was opening up for the union in the West toward the end of the strike,” said Alyson Kennedy, one of the former Co-Op miners. “It was the real turning point of this fight.”

Kennedy said that railroad workers in the area were talking to the strikers about solidarity actions. Union workers at local power plants were talking about challenging their employers’ business dealings with Co-Op. Miners from union and nonunion mines in the area were stopping by the picket line to discuss conditions in the surrounding mines, and there was growing interest in the possibilities of organizing some of the nonunion mines.

“It was at that point in the struggle that conditions were the best for coming out of the strike and pressing toward a UMWA local at Co-Op,” Kennedy said. “That’s what was opening up for us—no matter what our different immigration statuses were—if labor action both in this area, the region, and nationally had been strong enough to reinforce what was being done on the picket line and then when we were back in the mine.”

But that’s not what happened, she said. “So the ground began to shift.”

The bosses pressed the fight onto turf more to their liking, Kennedy said. “They filed the lawsuit, dragging us, the UMWA, and many of our supporters into the courts.

“With the union election only days away, the bossed decided to use the pretext of immigration laws to carry out a second round of firings.

“They couldn’t defeat us,” Kennedy said, “but the struggle became a standoff.”  
 
Retaliatory lawsuit
In September 2004 C.W. Mining and the company-allied International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU) launched their lawsuit in federal court charging 16 miners and nearly every public supporter of the miners’ struggle with slander against the company and against the IAUWU. More than 150 defendants were named in the original suit, including the Militant newspaper and two of Utah’s main dailies, the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News. Many of the original defendants were subsequently dropped from the suit.

In response to this legal attack, the Militant Fighting Fund was launched in October 2004 to raise funds to help the Militant defend itself and publicize the efforts of other defendants, including the miners and the UMWA. Since that time, more than 1,000 organizations and individuals endorsed the fund. These include 26 trade union locals, officers of 10 international unions, and nearly 230 officers of union locals.

In Judge Benson’s May 1, 2006, ruling, he dismissed the defamation claims against the two Utah dailies and the miners, calling the employer’s slander charges against the miners “an attempt to intimidate [Co-Op’s] employees and quell honest discussion concerning labor issues.”

The way federal laws are written, said Bob Butero, director of organizing in UMWA Region 4, “immigrant workers don’t really have many protections.” This is one of the big challenges in union organizing, he said. “The Co-Op miners showed they could fight, and the support for their struggle was overwhelming.”

“The UMWA’s goal is to organize every coal miner, but that struggle doesn’t always end in a union contract,” Butero said, adding that he thought the workers at Co-Op had gained through the union fight. Butero said he expects to see more struggles like Co-Op in the future because “you still have companies abusing and exploiting workers.”  
 
Blazed a trail
“The fight at Co-Op blazed a trail for what is happening today with millions of immigrants marching in the streets demanding legalization,” said Estrada.

“These marches are helping the unions face the biggest political question for the entire labor movement today,” Estrada said. “Employers shouldn’t be able to get away with what was done at Co-Op.”

The company responded to the settlement in the Utah press. “You never win everything in a settlement. You never lose everything. It was the proper thing to do,” Carl Kingston, the attorney representing C.W. Mining in the settlement negotiations, told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The company, he said, saw the issue as one “centered on protecting employer rights,” according to the Salt Lake daily. The Tribune said the company now plans to concentrate “on restoring production.”

A call by this reporter to the Co-Op Mine for comment about the settlement was not returned.  
 
Miners prepare celebration
The June 4 celebration and Mexican dinner being planned by miners involved in the Co-Op organizing drive will be held at the UMWA hall here in Price at 1:00 p.m.

The miners are inviting all the groups and individuals who have backed the fight over the past three years to join them. The UMWA is sending out information on the event to union locals in the West, and a mailing is being sent out to financial contributors by Bob and Ann Fivecoat, who administered the Co-Op miners’ fund.

“The miners are the winners coming out of this standoff with the company,” said Ann Fivecoat. “We are definitely going to be there on June 4 to celebrate.”

“I hope there’s a big turnout June 4,” said John Fischer, a retired member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Seattle who took part in a number of actions in the Price area in solidarity with the Co-Op miners’ struggle. “All of us who have been involved in this fight look forward to the opportunity to get together, talk about the struggle, and celebrate.”  
 
 
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